


Dusting

by TyrantChimera



Category: Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII, Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Gift Fic, IT IS ADORABLE, and pranks from the most un-prankful sort of people, kind of crack, minor mayhem of baking ingredients, please go read their fic 'Son'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:34:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23913115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TyrantChimera/pseuds/TyrantChimera
Summary: Fatherhood was just full of surprises. Vincent Valentine is just trying to live a relatively normal life, but a certain silverette has other ideas. Inspired by “Son” by She_sees-in-the-dark.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 221





	Dusting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [She_sees_in_the_dark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/She_sees_in_the_dark/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Son](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23071255) by [She_sees_in_the_dark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/She_sees_in_the_dark/pseuds/She_sees_in_the_dark). 



> In which I do a completely random, out-of-nowhere gift ficlet because the idea got stuck in my head and I couldn't drop it. Thank you to She_sees_in_the_dark for their fic, “Son”! Hope I haven't made too many assumptions about your AU 'verse!

Vincent never saw it coming.

One moment he was stood in his living room, babysitting a tiny Cloud as he and his adopted son did weekly chores. Sephiroth was watching the small child out of the corner of his eye as he helped Vincent clean. The silver haired boy hadn't stopped gazing in awe, and more than a little incomprehension, at the fluffy-haired bundle laid flat on his back on the floor even though it had been weeks since he was born. In contrast, the tiny blonde was too busy giggling and batting at the treasures on the arch of toys swinging gaily over him to notice. Small yellow birds, plastic rings, and many multi-coloured bells, all twinkled and spun happily above his head on the activity gym (and if there was an in-joke with the chocobos on the toy and how much the future Cloud would pout when compared to the rear end of one of the avians, well...). The next thing he knew his phone was ringing, and Vincent had to wander into the hall to answer the ancient device purloined from the local store's bargain bin.

“Watch him for a moment, would you?” he asked Sephiroth as he left.

The conversation over the line lasted a bit longer than expected. It was his former partner, Veld, his voice a comforting drone over the tinny speaker of his phone. They go back and forth about plans, strategies, memories, casual quips and friendly banter over everything and nothing. Vincent looks back at the doorway to the living room every once in a while, keeping his ears open for sounds of anything wrong, but there's nothing except for Cloud, who can be heard playing as normal. At least, at first. Suddenly there's a small, yet entirely unfamiliar noise from the room. Vincent blinks, thinks of how the noise was just a little too much like a low-grade wind spell or explosion, and decides to lean back through the doorway to see just what the heck was going on.

“Vincent?” Veld's small, curious query goes ignored.

Everything is white. The walls, the floor, the couch, the kids. A blank mess covers every part of the room the eye can see and then some. Sephiroth is in the middle of the place, looking at Vincent in monotone bewilderment. One the far side of the room, out of Sephiroth's current reach, there is a paper bag in the corner that once held flour. Sephiroth looks at Vincent. He looks at the bag, then looks back at Vincent as if there was nothing wrong, as if everything was normal, and as if him standing in the middle of a warzone of baking ingredients, holding a now-redundant duster and standing at parade rest, was utterly ordinary in its entirety.

Vincent blinks. “What did you do?”

“Nothing. I was dusting, like you asked me to,” Sephiroth stares back, face devoid of emotion. Completely innocent, or perhaps ignorant, of the catastrophe of pale powder now decorating their living room.

It takes a moment for everything to register. Vincent blinks again. Dusting. As in, the dusting one does when decorating a cake with icing sugar, rather than cleaning. Dusting. Why that... that little brat! Vincent thinks, stunned. He was playing stupid. He'd pulled a prank?!? The gunman's face was just as blank as his charge's, still trying to comprehend the fact that the former world ending, meteor summoning, sword swinging son of the calamity, Sephiroth, had just pulled a prank involving baking ingredients and a once-clean living space.

“Pschee!”

Both stopped their staring contest to look at the source of the tiny, adorable sneeze. Cloud, covered in flour, just blinks back. White powder dusts his entire body, caked around his nose and smeared throughout his hair. Upon noticing that he now had an audience, Cloud's chubby little face crinkles up in glee and mischief as he kicks wildly with unrestrained delight. “Ahee hee hee!”

Vincent looks back at Sephiroth.

If anyone had told him time travel would involve watch a tiny silverette attack his former hated (and now a baby) nemesis with flour and giggles instead of swords and sharp words, then innocently gaze around with a nothing-to-see-here expression, he'd have called them barmy. Instead he was stood dully, picking up the pieces from where his brain had decided to explode with all the exuberance of a pinata stuffed with cans-of-worms, glitter confetti, and the loudest and brightest firecrackers that could be found on this side of 'legal but stupid' (and hadn't THAT been a fun Turk party to clean up after).

Sephiroth looked at him. Sephiroth smiled. It was the tiniest, most innocent, most “you-know-and-I-know-I-did-this-but-good-look-pinning-it-on-me” smirk he'd ever seen.

“Ahem... Vincent?” Veld calls again, his voice echoing oddly from the phone's lackluster speaker.

Vincent just blinked, again, because this was definitely going in the “I don't know what just happened and neither does my brain, but I'll deal with it LATER” box, stepped back into the hall, and continued his debrief with Veld.

Fatherhood was just full of surprises.


End file.
